A train derailment Monday night (Jan. 3), blocking traffic lanes on La. 18 for hours
in both directions in Avondale on Tuesday morning, was caused by problems
with a portion of track owned by International-Matex Tank Terminals,
authorities said.

Raquel
Espinoza, a spokeswoman for Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the train that derailed,
said that an investigation by Union Pacific and International-Matex found that the tracks where the accident occurred were not level.

"Two
empty tanks derailed while the train crew was moving them out of the IMTT
facility," Espinoza said. She confirmed that no injuries were reported, and
that La. 18 had re-opened at approximately 8 a.m. Tuesday.

As
a railroad franchise, Union Pacific owns main line tracks and sidetracks across
the country that it maintains, Espinoza said. But in this case, she said, International-Matex
owned the tracks and was responsible for maintaining them.

The
investigation into the accident is ongoing.

"We're
continuing to work with IMTT to determine the exact cause of the derailment, and to prevent incidents like these from happening in the
future," Espinoza said.

A recent series of high-profile derailments and
explosions -- such as the derailed freight
train in eastern North Dakota that led the town of Casselton to be evacuated --has spurred calls for increased safety measures for both passenger and freight
trains.

The U.S. Department of
Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration recently announced a new
set of regulations for rail inspections, aimed at identifying rail flaws and
reducing the risk of derailments.

The
new regulations, announced in an Federal Railroad Administration news release Jan. 24, are intended
to strengthen the existing Federal Track Safety Standards. They include
conducting more frequent track inspections, requiring that rail inspectors are
qualified to operate rail-flaw detection equipment, and establishing an "annual
maximum allowable rate of rail defects" between inspections of track segments.

The Federal Track Safety Standards mandate that railroads regularly
inspect tracks with special "hi-rail motor vehicles," which use ultrasonic
technology to identify defects inside the rails that could lead to an accident.
Other safety standards in place include a maximum amount of tonnage
that can be hauled along a rail between inspections.

Despite
the heightened awareness of derailments, the Railroad Administration says that track safety has steadily improved
in recent years. Joseph C. Szabo, the Federal Railroad Administrator, said in statement last month that track-caused accidents in the United States have declined by 40 percent over the past decade.